Please answer two questions or bring up your own topics and analyses for discussion.
1. Book 11 is Odysseus's descent into Hades. How do you interpret this descent (metaphorically)? This is really a descent into what? To whom does he speak in Hades? Why?
2. Book 12 presents a series of tests for Odysseus: (1) the sirens, (2) Scylla and Charybdis and (3) the Cattle of the Sun. Choose one of these tests and analyse it by answering these questions: (1) what does this test represent? (2) What do the elements of this test represent (the sirens, Scylla / Charybdis, the Sun)? (3) Who succeeds and who fails? What does this success and / or failure represent?
3. How do Odysseus's tests and trials ready him for his return to Ithaca in Book 13? Why the need for a disguise (yes a literal reading is obvious, I'm looking for the symbolism of the disguise)?
4. What does Eumaeus represent in book 14? Why the need to move from the seashore to his hut? What does this transition represent?
No comments:
Post a Comment